OhForAGreavsie

I'm very surprised that Barca want him back. Up to them.

All transfer deals, be they permanent or temporary, are a subject of three-way negotiations. Each party will have their own hierarchy of wishes and red lines. It is obvious that Chelsea would ALWAYS like to include a recall clause but we will also want to prefer a loan destination where the intention is that the player will start over any where the player will be a squad player. If the side offering starts insists that they can't offer the player starts if there is a possibility of his being recalled then Chelsea have a decision to make. If Chelsea choose a club willing to accept the recall clause but which is only offering a squad place then the player has a decision to make. Why leave one club where you won't play for another one where you won't play either? My claim is that it isn't as easy as it might seem to drop whatever clauses you want into these deals.

And then there's that ugly, eyesore of a lake a couple of hours up the road. 🙂

I first came across him when watching Rennes to follow Boga. At first I just tuned out again when Boga wasn't starting but eventually I saw Dembele play and was sold instantly. From that moment he was a high priority target as far as I was concerned. It was discouraging however to read claims by his agent (his dad or brother at the time) that they had turned down a move to Chelsea the season before. I'm in favour of trying again.

Man I love this forum. Post after post is worth reading regardless of whether I agree with the poster's opinion or not. Thank you SB, and for the record I agree with virtually every word you wrote here. I don't doubt the contribution Ben was making in the run up to his injury. My concern is whether that was merely good form, or a genuine demonstration of his level. Obviously we would all like it to be the latter but I won't believe it is until that level is maintained consistently. I can't set aside the fact that Ben was regarded as second choice earlier this season. Whatever TT's thinking might have been behind that decision, the decision itself is at least an amber warning for me. Especially when we consider that any manager who selects Marcos Alonso does so in full knowledge of his strengths AND his weaknesses. Given my pre existing questions about Ben that amber warning flashes bright with me.

I have to confess that I've been a non believer from the start. After his mooted move became public I watched his Rangers academy highlight videos and commented that he would find a lot of youth team players at Cobham that were more talented than him. As for the video watching challenge, I will if you will. For me, the Liverpool game was good (not withstanding the fact that the most memorable moment benefitted from a slice of luck) but not as good as billed, the Toffees game was not as good as the Liverpool one and the England game was a dramatic example of 'overhyped'. An unspectacular performance in my view As you can tell I have watched those videos but I will watch them again. If you decide to do the same, I'd be really interested to know what you think about the Grimsby game. I left the ground that night really buzzing about Billy's performance but for me that display looses a lot of its sheen in the cold light of the day.

I hope no one will want to respond to the comment which follows by warning that everyone looks good in their highlight videos. That's simply not true. This kid looks special in the vid I watched. If he's even 70% as good in reality he should be a high priority target. If we land him, and he lives up to the promise, then I reckon it'll have to be a contract extension for vesper on 66% more dosh than her current TalkChelsea deal.

Sounds like someone has decided never to run out of LBs again! 🙂 Sosa is the right profile of player I think and most importantly would come in to challenge for the starter's role. I'm not interested in seeing the club focus only on a replacement for Marcos Alonso. Indeed, I suspect Sosa would only consider Chelsea if the first choice function was on the table.

The one thing I do not want to see is TT come under any kind of pressure.

Fully agree. Of the list you give I can pick Morata as the odd one out because I was OK with signing him but was against signing all of the others.

I've stated previously that if I had had Roman's money I would absolutely have tried to buy Chelsea and, if successful, would now be making all of the transfer decisions myself. Certainly I'd give the manager every opportunity to sell me on his preferred targets but, in the end, I would watch the player myself and decide myself. When it comes to the potential return of Eden Hazard however I would probably have to recuse myself. I'm too emotionally attached.

Thanks LAM, I don't agree here and certainly not with these examples. The failures of Torres and Shevchenko were exactly as I predicted. After watching Sheva at world Cup 2006 I distinctly remember commenting (elsewhere) that, "He had nothing to offer us." I saw it so anybody could have seen it and I believe that everybody in the game did see it. I don't think anyone with money to spend but Roman saw Andraiy as a top player in the summer of 2006. As for Torres, check out Jamie Carragher's comments about how he and his fellow Liverpool squad members couldn't believe the money the club had received for Nando, or Danny Murphy's about how his ex Liverpool teammates only ever spoke about all the things Torres couldn't do on a football pitch. They both knew Liverpool were taking Chelsea to the cleaners. Ballack was a different proposition in that he had reached the stage where he was looking for the best pay packet, not the best "project" as continental footballers like to say. Had he been perceived as a top player still a more attractive club would have matched our contract offer and taken him. I'm sure you have in mind many other players who you would cite as examples but, with the possible exception of Eden Hazard, I would argue that we were able to sign those players because no other 'big' club wanted them as much as we did. With Eden the stars aligned in our favour and we pulled off arguably the greatest transfer in our history. Only the capture of Frank Lampard compares but I can only say that with hindsight. At the time no one foresaw what Frank would become. I believe that Eden is very much the exception which proves the rule. You and I have both heard of players claiming to have turned down better offers from Chelsea in order to join their preferred club instead. On the other hand, I can't remember any examples of big name players claiming to have turned down better offers from big name clubs to join Chelsea instead. There is a pecking order and, for the very best players, we are not at the top of it.

Depends on the definition of 'top' I suppose but I don't think we ever have been.

I said at the time that I hoped Pulli's marketability was just seen as a fringe benefit, not actually a reason to sign him. I still hope that was true. Saying there is zero footballing identity at the club sounds harsh to my ears but, if you are wrong, you are not wrong by much.

Was he? I don't know. Even if Rom was the best available, that still does not mean he is good enough. There must be a quality threshold and all players must meet it in order to justify a significant transfer fee. If, after watching Rom across eleven seasons of top level football, our decision makers still can't realise that he is short of the required quality then they have no business making those decisions in the first place. For nearly nineteen years now I have posted, here and elsewhere, to say that we tend to buy players with qualities rather than players of quality. I hope one year from now this will have changed. Every penny drops in the end.

Something that really has to go is the recruitment approach which means that generation after generation we underperform in the transfer market and collect players with a flair for the spectacular but lacking in the final stamp of quality.

Was coming even when we were top.

I would imagine any 'big' player going there would want to include a relegation release clause in their contract

Fair point.

This is the key. We spend enough money to be better than we are.

That would leave us playing with ten men.

To be fair that was the indication before he even made his debut but after the Southampton cup game there was no more room for doubt. He's not the answer.

This is the reality.

If there is to be any hope for Spurs they have to be doing better against a side playing as poorly as we did for long spells last night.

Probably more than a couple. 🙂 🙂 Corrected.